213 Miles From Shea

The Mets bring their newly competitive selves to St. Louis today to try to slow down the Cardinals. The Mets are winners of seven of their last eight games and could help to derail the Wild Card party in St. Louis with a good series. Today Collin McHugh makes his second start of the season as he goes up against Joe Kelly.

Collin McHugh had an excellent major league debut last month when he pitched 7.0 innings allowing 2 hits and striking out 9 batters (becoming second only to Matt Harvey for strikeouts in a major league debut). After that start he was sent down to make room for Hefner’s return, a move that was criticized but Hefner has pitched well since coming back to the rotation. Anyway, Collin was 7-9 over 25 starts in the minors this season with a 2.91 ERA. Since his only major league start was against the Rockies, the Cardinals do not have any major league numbers against him.

Joe Kelly is 4-6 over 15 games and 13 starts this year pitching 82.1 innings and posting a 3.61 ERA. Kelly is coming off of his worst start of the season where he allowed 5 ER over 5 innings of work. Before that in August he was in 5 games pitching a total of 25.1 innings with a 3.81 ERA. Kelly is a rookie and has never faced the Mets or anyone on the Mets roster.

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets go for a sweep, yes a SWEEP, today in Miami as the suddenly resurgent Mets try to cap off last night. Yesterday the Mets struggled offensively until the ninth inning when they scored 4 runs and took the second game from the Marlins. This afternoon Chris Young will get the start as he goes up against Mark Buehrle.

Chris Young is 3-7 over 15 starts this season totaling 85.1 innings of work with a 4.64 ERA. The month of August was an odd one for Young who had a 4.76 ERA over 5 starts. He had two great starts, one start were he was hurt by the defense and then two torrid starts, including his last one. One of his bad starts was against Miami where he allowed 7 ER in 4.1 innings of work. The Marlins have the following numbers against Young:

Reyes 2-14, 3B, HR
Dobbs 3-13, 2B
Lee 3-8
Kearns 2-5
Buck 1-3, 2B
Peterson 0-3
Stanton 3-3, 2B, 2 HR

The Mets will get a look at Mark Buehrle who is 12-11 over 166.2 innings with a 3.62 ERA in his first season as a Marlin. In his last three starts he has pitched 19.2 innings while allowing only 5 ER. In two starts against the Mets this year he has pitched 13.2 innings while allowing only 4 ER. The Mets have the following numbers against him:

Bay 4-17, 2B
Shoppach 8-18, 2 2B, 4 HR
Cedeno 5-11
Torres 1-7
Davis 1-6, HR
Duda 3-6
Wright 3-6, HR

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets aim to win their third consecutive series tonight as the play the Marlins for game two. The bullpen over the last week has been really effective, and last night R.A. Dickey decided to give them the night off as he pitched a 5 hit, complete game shut out, which just cut up the Marlins. Tonight Hefner looks to build off of his last start as he takes on Josh Johnson.

Jeremy Hefner is 2-5 with a 4.65 ERA over 69.2 innings of work. His last start was easily the best of the season as he pitching into the ninth inning before allowing a run (and really, that was due to some interesting defense behind him). He has only pitched one inning against the Marlins this season, and it has been a scoreless one. The following Marlins have limited numbers against Hefner:

Lee 0-1
Reyes 0-1
Stanton 0-1

The Mets bats will get a look at a familiar Josh Johnson who is 7-11 this season with a 4.00 ERA over 157.1 innings of work. In his first fours starts of August, Johnson was doing really well (2.43 ERA) but got thrown off in his last start allowing 6 ER over 3.0 innings of work. Against the Mets he has pitched 12.2 innings this year allowing 4 ER. The Mets have the following numbers against Johnson:

Wright 8-35, 2B, 3B, HR
Murphy 6-23, 2 2B
Davis 2-12
Bay 5-12, 3B, HR
Thole 3-9, 2 2B
Torres 5-5, 3 2B

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets head down to Miami today to take on the Marlins in what will be an important series to stay out of the basement of the National League East. Going into yesterday’s game the Mets had a four game winning streak that was snapped even after a quality start of Jon Niese and the bullpen holding down the fort. Tonight R.A. Dickey takes the mound as he faces Nathan Eovaldi, who just keeps drawing the Mets.

R.A. Dickey is 16-4 on the season over 186.1 innings of work while posting an ERA of 2.76 striking out 183 batters. In his last two starts he has pitched a combined 14.0 innings while allowing only 2 earned runs. Dickey is 3-0 in as many starts this year against the Marlins holding them to 1.64 earned runs per game over 22 innings. The Marlins have the following numbers against Dickey:

Lee 9-25, 3 2B, HR
Reyes 2-16
Buck 3-13, 2B
Dobbs 2-14
Stanton 3-13, 2B
Kearns 1-3

Nathan Eovaldi makes another start against the Mets, which is amazing when you consider that he was traded from the Dodgers. On the season he is 4-9 with a 4.54 ERA over 83.1 innings. Against the Mets, he has a 3.86 ERA over 3 starts and 14.2 innings of work. Eovaldi is coming off of a rough start allowing 6 ER over 3 innings. The Mets have the following numbers against Nathan:

Tejada 1-7
Wright 2-8
Davis 2-6, 2B, HR
Murphy 3-5, 2 2B
Thole 2-5
Duda 2-5

Let’s Go Mets!